YouTube launches site in traditional Chinese

“You should not have to understand English to be able to use YouTube,” said Chen, who noted that most of the site’s traffic comes from outside the U.S.

The Traditional Chinese version of the site is: http:/www.youtube.com.tw/.

YouTube has become an online video-sharing phenomenon less than two-and-a-half years after it was launched in a backyard garage in San Francisco in 2005. Last year, the company was purchased by Internet giant Google for US$1.65 billion while the site was averaging nearly 20 million visitors per month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

Chen said that YouTube has now become a platform beyond entertainment, as bloggers, musicians and artists form the majority of users sharing videos online. “Seven hours [of video content] are uploaded on YouTube every minute,” he said.

Although the popular website allows videos to overcome distance among users, some language issues still remain and limit access to the English-only interface of YouTube. Therefore, Chen said, the U.S.-based Internet company decided to gradually launch localized YouTube sites.

On Wednesday, the first Chinese-language site was launched in Hong Kong. Other versions in local language interfaces were also launched in recent weeks — Portuguese (Brazil), French (France), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Dutch (the Netherlands), Polish (Poland), and Spanish (Spain).

“YouTube allows everyone to take control of what is published around the world,” said Chen, who also cautioned users to respect the copyrighted content in their videos.

Chen added that Google’s newly developed technology, “YouTube Video Identification,” will be used to identify potentially copyright-infringing videos.

“You don’t just know whether certain content is copyrighted,” Chen said. “We need to work with content providers to collect an [information] database.”

The same kind of database system is already used to control music broadcast on radio.

Starting October 2007, YouTube has been allowing media companies to directly block their copyrighted video content that was uploaded to YouTube from being played, without seeking prior permission from the website or the users.

According to media sources, YouTube took this initiative because it is facing several copyright-infringement lawsuits, including a US$1 billion action filed by Viacom Inc. The media industry conglomerate denounced YouTube and Google for passing on thousands of videos illegally copied from popular TV shows owned by Viacom.

The representatives of the four local media partners present during yesterday’s event, however, lauded cooperation with YouTube instead of confrontation. China Television Co., Sanlih E-Television Co., Lion Travel Service Co., and Taiwan Broadcasting System, announced on the occasion that YouTube would also feature their produced content online.

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